‘Clean coal’ advocates use EVs to make their case

You knew it was coming: People trying to ride the unfolding EV revolution as a means to promote dirty, polluting coal.

Recently ran across a column written by a guy by the name of Frank Sherosky who describes himself as an auto industry design engineer at a web site called TorqueNews.Com. Frank uses the column to extol the alleged necessity of coal to power the EV revolution as well as coal’s supposed beauties. Actually, there’s only one of these “beauties”. You know, the whole “domestically produced” energy spiel.

Frank, who’s written a number of e-books that would make any neoliberal capitalist proud – Perfecting corporate character and Awaken your speculator mind – makes an impassioned pitch for “clean coal” as the future source of energy for America’s (and the world’s?) growing electric fleet.

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EV revolution & renewables revolutionNow, Frank’s perfectly entitled to his views – as we are to our own. And, as you might guess, our own views are diametrically opposed to his: We see the EV revolution as a way to power a renewable energy revolution, not a dirty coal revolution (sorry, Frank, we don’t buy the propaganda about “clean coal”).

We point out Frank’s column – which we found by combining news.google with RSS (a fantastic way to keep up with niche news on specialty news topics, by the way!) – because it underscores a point we made when we started SolarChargedDriving.Com two years ago: Despite what more than a few pro-EV advocates seem to naively (or hopefully?) think, growth in EVs does not automatically mean growth in renewable energy.

For an EV revolution to spark a renewable energy revolution, we need you, me, and every other pro-EV advocate who doesn’t want to run his or her EV on coal or other fossil fuels, to actively promote renewable energy. We need the same people to plug their EVs into renewables, either via a home solar system or residential wind and/or by buying green energy from their utility.

Dirty Coal resurgence?If we who support the EV + renewable energy synergy don’t do this, we could be looking at a Dirty Coal resurgence — driven in part by none other than our very own EV revolution.

Now, there might be some out there, including some EV advocates, who would like to see an EV revolution increase coal use in the U.S.

We’re definitely not among that group.

In fact, we’re going to continue to do everything we can to fight against pro-coal folks — doesn’t matter to us whether they’re pro-EV or not — to ensure that renewable energy, not coal, powers America’s, and the world’s, future EVs.

What do you think: Are you in with us on the EVs + renewable energy vs. EVs + coal battle?

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About The Author

Christof Demont-Heinrich is founder, creator and editor of SolarChargedDriving.Com, which he launched in September 2009. A journalism professor at the University of Denver (DU), Demont-Heinrich is a lifelong environmentalist who loves to bird, hike, camp, and bike. As passionate as he is about the environment -- and about promoting the synergy between solar power and electric cars, he is equally passionate about writing.